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I have heard see this sketchy reference that people with Multiple Personality Disorder, or other mental disorders, have different physical features when having different personalities. For example, their eye color will change.

Is it true that people's eye colour can change this way? What is the source for this belief?

Oddthinking
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Napoleonothecake
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1 Answers1

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Several sources claim that a person's apparent eye color can change (primarily and perhaps only in lightness or darkness) as the result of mood changes, illness, or stress level. Your quoted article doesn't give any details about the reported eye color changes in patients diagnosed with MPD, so it's hard to know if they may be referring only to such a phenomenon, or making some loftier claim.

Some people have noted that when they are ill or under stress that their eye color becomes darker or lighter. (source)

Eye color does not actually change with mood. What does change is the way light reflects off the iris, creating the impression that the color of the eye has changed. . . . While light affects the retina, mood also affects retinal contraction. Under stress, the retina contracts, making the pupil smaller and revealing more of the iris to light. In lighter eyes, or eyes that reflect more light, this can cause the eyes to appear to change color. (source)

It is easy to find anecdotal evidence of people who's eye colors seem to change, allegedly according to their mood. Typically in those with hazel eyes, their eyes may appear blue (particularly when happy) or brown (particularly when upset or sad). Although it's unclear to me how much of this is truly related to mood, and how much may be environmental factors that affect the light reflecting off of the eyes. I can say that as a person with hazel eyes myself, I frequently have friends comment on my changed eye color. But I've never paid close enough attention to notice if my mood, the environment, or perhaps the sunglasses my friends were wearing were a common theme. :)

From The Merck Manual, Dissociative Identity Disorder (aka Multiple Personality Disorder) is "attributed to the interaction of ... overwhelming stress," and "patients often have a remarkable array of symptoms that can resemble those of anxiety disorders, mood disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder."

So it seems plausible that eye color can change, at least in terms of shade, by mood and stress changes brought on by DID/MPD. However, the closest I have found to a credible source directly linking eye color change to DID/MPD is in this review of this book on the topic of DID/MPD. The book itself appears to be well-received, based on the reviews on Amazon, including at least one by the spouse of a diagnosed "multiple" (DID patient). I'm not sure how much this all says about the credibility of the book, but at least it's not obvious poppy-cock, eh?

So it seems the answer is Yes, DID/MPD can cause temporary changes in eye color, at least if you accept that a change in the eye's shade counts as a change in color.

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Flimzy
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  • what about the allergies and different prescriptions – Napoleonothecake Oct 30 '11 at 06:08
  • @Napoleonothecake: What about them? – Flimzy Oct 30 '11 at 06:11
  • is there any legitimacy to the claim you can change allergies per personality – Napoleonothecake Oct 30 '11 at 06:13
  • @Napoleonothecake: I have no idea. This question was about eye color, so I made an effort to answer that question. – Flimzy Oct 30 '11 at 06:15
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    Wow, I never knew. Interesting find. One note though, I’m not sure if it makes sense to distinguish the colour change in the way the quotation does: colour is created through absorption and refraction. If the iris reflects light differently (i.e. absorbs different parts of the spectrum) then this *is* a colour change, by definition. – Konrad Rudolph Oct 30 '11 at 11:43
  • @Flimzy: I may have caused some confusion. The original title was poor, so I edited it for clarity. At the time there were two claims and I selected the most prominent for the title (some allergies are variable, easy-to-fake-even-with-witnesses and have significant psychosomatic components, so are far less interesting). At the time, I thought eye-colour was invariant (at least over the short-term) and hence the most interesting claim; I've been learned! I think I'd like for this question to be broken up, rather than sustain all these different claims. – Oddthinking Oct 30 '11 at 23:32
  • @Oddthinking: Ah, thanks. I'll wait to see if it's split up before I amend my answer. – Flimzy Oct 30 '11 at 23:36
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    I wonder whether these effects can't be more easily explained by changes in the pupil diameter in people where the iris colour isn't constant across the eye. This could easily change the perceived colour without actually altering the overall pigmentation of the iris. – matt_black Oct 31 '11 at 10:37
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    -1 : Anecdotal evidence and a book shouldn't lead to the conclusion of "Yes." Sometimes "there isn't enough data" is the best answer, and probably the most appropriate for this one. – MCM Dec 03 '12 at 23:16
  • @MCM: Anecdote is often sufficient to prove that something can/may happen. It is ridiculous that this site discredits anecdotal evidence in such cases, when such an answer is valid in context of the question. – Flimzy Dec 04 '12 at 02:17
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    @Flimzy - I didn't say anecdotal evidence couldn't be used as a starting point for research, but it's not firm evidence by any measure. I criticized your conclusion. One option in science is always "We simply don't know" - and you found *only* one **book review** and paraphrased your friends, then claimed "Yes" it can happen. The affirmation is completely baseless with such sparse, non-scientific evidence. That this site requires better evidence is to its credit, otherwise you might as well believe in the Unicorn cave that North Korea discovered. – MCM Dec 04 '12 at 02:37
  • @MCM: One instance of something happening is all that is necessary to _conclude_ that "Yes, it can happen." If the question was "Is this common?" clearly my answer would be inadequate. – Flimzy Dec 04 '12 at 22:49
  • Finding a unicorn cave in North Korea would be, by definition, anecdotal. The existence of Rome is anecdotal. The difference between the two claims is the credibility of the eye-witnesses, not the anecdotal nature of the claims. – Flimzy Dec 04 '12 at 22:51
  • So having said that, if your complaint against my answer is the credibility of the source, I accept that. If your complaint is still the anecdotal nature of the report, I respectfully disagree with you, and the site's official policy, on the matter. – Flimzy Dec 04 '12 at 22:53
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    @Flimzy - And you haven't proven that it happened even once. The single line you're referring to in your "credible" link is this: **Even EYE COLOR can change!** That's rubbish. The rest is your anecdotes, which you get secondhand and are already suspect of. From a Skeptical (much less *scientific*) viewpoint, *you don't have any evidence.* BTW: The existence of Rome is *not* anecdotal. It's currently a city, and the vestiges of the old Roman Empire still exist throughout Europe. You can visit them. You can even read much of the text if you know some Latin. – MCM Dec 04 '12 at 23:19
  • http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/427/4020 – Flimzy Dec 04 '12 at 23:23
  • http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/447/4020 – Flimzy Dec 04 '12 at 23:26
  • If I had a quote "Dr. Smith said he saw a patient's eye color change due to mood" would that satisfy you? I'm having a really hard time understanding what, exactly, you think is wrong with my answer, aside form a (IMO) overly-strict interpretation of the general "no anecdotal evidence" rule. And if it's just a difference in opinion on that policy, I'm happy with that. But if there's something more specific you think could be improved, please let me know. – Flimzy Dec 04 '12 at 23:28
  • @Flimzy: an·ec·do·tal/ˌanikˈdōtl/ Adjective: (of an account) *Not necessarily true or reliable, because based on personal accounts rather than facts or research.* No matter what meta answer you point to, we can't accept it, I'm afraid. Also [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence). – Sklivvz Dec 04 '12 at 23:52
  • "The existence of Rome is anecdotal." Erm, no. – Sklivvz Dec 04 '12 at 23:53
  • @Sklivvz: From your wiki link: "Because of the small sample, there is a larger chance that it may be unreliable due to cherry-picked or otherwise non-representative samples of typical cases" -- Cherry-picked data is perfect for answering what _may_ happen. I think the meta answers I linked to do a good job of explaining why this is acceptable when answering some skeptical claims. – Flimzy Dec 05 '12 at 05:20
  • @Sklivvz: If the question was "Does eye color tend to change due to mood," then I would be in complete agreement that anecdotal evidence would make for an invalid answer. But that is not the question. – Flimzy Dec 05 '12 at 05:21
  • @Sklivvz: I suspect we will never agree on the point of the acceptability of anecdotal evidence for questions like these, but can you provide an example of what you believe would be proper evidence for a question in the form of "Is X possible?" if a (credible) anecdote does not, in your mind, sufficie? I asked the same of MCM above. – Flimzy Dec 05 '12 at 05:28
  • @Flimzy no, anecdotes are never OK, they are unreliable. Black and white. You can mention them as much as you like, but they don't prove anything at all. – Sklivvz Dec 05 '12 at 07:46
  • @Sklivvz: So what kind of answer would be appropriate, in your mind, for this sort of question? – Flimzy Dec 05 '12 at 07:57
  • @Flimzy [this](http://archopht.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=411591) is an example of a scientific medical case (a single point of *data*, not an *anecdote*) reported to a peer-reviewed journal. It's not about mental health but it is about changing eye colour. A similar article regarding the specific question would suffice and would not be anecdotal. – Sklivvz Dec 05 '12 at 08:00
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    @Flimzy The eye colour does not change. A good example is David Bowie's eyes. Many people think that he has one green eye and one brown eye. In actuality both his eyes are brown -- but one eye is permanently dilated, making it appear a different colour. Eye colour doesn't change, but it may APPEAR to. – Django Reinhardt Nov 25 '13 at 16:27
  • @Flimzy You're not getting it. Consider this optical illusion: http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/images/news2/What-Can-We-Learn-from-Optical-Illusions-7.jpg A and B are the exact same colour, but they look completely different thanks to how our brains process colour. Your "source" states this as well: "this can cause the eyes to **appear** to change color". Eyes do not change colour. Period. – Django Reinhardt Nov 25 '13 at 16:31
  • @Flimzy It's not irrelevant semantics, it's entirely relevant semantics: You come to the conclusion that eye colour CAN change, when all the evidence states that they can only APPEAR to change. As in the optical illusion: The colours APPEAR different, but in fact are exactly the same. That's an important distinction. – Django Reinhardt Nov 25 '13 at 16:35
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    To overly simplify, there are two main ways to think of color; 1) The pigmentation of an object, 2) The light reflected off the object, and/or perceived to be reflected off the object (as when viewed through a haze). You seem to be stuck on #1, while the majority of discussions about the color of ones eyes are about #2. The fact that people are referring to #2, and you are arguing #1, makes your argument irrelevant. There is no meaningful difference between a "change in color" and an "apparent change in color" in sense #2. – Flimzy Nov 25 '13 at 16:35
  • @Flimzy Our eyes cannot be trusted when it comes to colour. Scientifically speaking colour can indeed be measured and catalogued. If, due the an optical illusion like the iris becoming dilated, it appears to us that an eye colour has changed, that does not mean it has actually changed. I'm sorry you don't get this, but there's perception and reality. The two are different: In reality all evidence suggests eye colour does not change, even if to our perception it APPEARS to. – Django Reinhardt Nov 25 '13 at 16:42
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    @DjangoReinhardt: It's not necessarily a question of human perception. A camera can also detect the "changes in color" of an eye. I'm sorry YOU don't get it. I'm sorry you're too narrow minded to accept that your definition of something might not be the ONLY correct definition. – Flimzy Nov 25 '13 at 16:43
  • @Flimzy A camera is also not necessarily a scientifically accurate colour measuring device, either. Again: Look at your own evidence. They clearly state: "Eye color **does not actually change** ... creating the **impression** that the color of the eye has changed ... this can cause the eyes to **appear** to change color". I know you think this is meaningless semantics, but scientifically speaking (and so skeptically thinking) it's a very important distinction. Please consider editing your answer. – Django Reinhardt Nov 25 '13 at 16:47
  • @DjangoReinhardt: Which part of my answer do you want me to change? From what I can tell, my answer doesn't actually disagree with your silly semantics. My answer is fully qualified, and explains exactly what it counts as a change in color. – Flimzy Nov 25 '13 at 16:47
  • @Flimzy I would suggest changing: "So it seems the answer is Yes, DID/MPD can cause temporary changes in eye color, at least if you accept that a change in the eye's shade counts as a change in color." to: "So it seems the answer is No, DID/MPD cannot cause changes in eye color -- but changes in mood can make changes to the iris which can give the impression of a change in color, at least in terms of shade." – Django Reinhardt Nov 25 '13 at 16:50
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    @DjangoReinhardt: No, I won't be making that change. That's an excellent example of a semantic change. Also notice KonradRudolph's comment above `If the iris reflects light differently (i.e. absorbs different parts of the spectrum) then this is a colour change, by definition. `. I think that's a much more convincing case than anything you've said. Again, I'm not saying your view of color is *wrong*; it's just not the most relevant one to the topic. Thank you for taking the time to comment on my answer; your suggestion has duly considered, but I disagree. – Flimzy Nov 25 '13 at 16:53